The initial plan for Saturday was to go to
Santa Anita .
Then, just to get brunch with champagne on a patio.
Then to spend a whole day on the west side; starting at
Joe's, then up to
Bay Cities Deli, then to
Chaya for sushi happy hour. In the end, the impromptu food marathon included Joe's,
Abbot's Pizza Company and
Jin Patisserie. I didn't take a lot of pictures, because I didn't realize it was gonna be a marathon until it was almost over.
I've been to Joe's for lunch and dinner and was impressed both times with the food and prices.
It's very comfortable, with a great patio and excellent menu choices. The banana bread shouldn't just be a starter, but a menu item. My only complaint is that for brunch, two of our orders were extremely rich; the
medley of mushrooms in a chorizo sauce with two poached eggs and the
rosti potato with scrambled eggs, smoked salmon, creme fraiche and caviar. 
Then on the flip side the
peeky-toe crab hash with poached eggs, red and yellow peppers, onions and mustard rosemary sauce and
french toast, fall dried fruit compote, maple jus cinnamon creme chantilly were bland. The cauliflower soup, however, was just right.
We walked down Abbot Kinney, and simply because I'd heard great things (besides the Zagat wall of fame)
I tried
Abbot's Pizza .
The slice of veggie with cheese was covered in fresh broccoli, onions, mushrooms. The signature bagel crust dough was powdery and soft, and the light cheese and sauce were tasty.
It tasted much healthier than Village Pizzeria (although we tend to order sausage and pepperoni-topped pizzas there). The atmosphere was fun, with loud service and joking pizza-makers behind the counter.
We finished off the trip at Jin Patisserie, a converted cottage with
seating and service
in the front yard. Featuring desserts very similar to Boule, this modern Patisserie sets the bar for dessert as edible art. Jin creatively names their cakes: Desire (dark chocolate mouse, vanilla creme brule), Inspiration (caramel, chocolate, sea salt and cocoa) and Splendor (white chocolate, fresh strawberries). I ordered a pistachio mousse with raspberry center, which was phenomenal.
All in all it was a solid Saturday. Suffice it to say, we had
Hirozen for dinner too... just to round out the day.
Here's another idea that I thought of when considering that salads are healthy and salad dressing isn't. What about marble-sized, edible capsules filled with salad dressing? Similar in look to a boba or a paintball, the dressing-filled capsules can easily be punctured with a fork to release their contents. They allow specific rationing of the amount of dressing desired, and also make distribution throughout the salad easy. Unevenly dressed, unhealthily doused and destructively tossed salads will no longer be a problem.
The capsules can work for other foods too- chocolate syrup capsules on top of ice cream, soy sauce capsules scattered throughout a bowl of rice, maple syrup capsules hidden in stacks of pancakes or french toast.
